News Release

San Francisco - Step right up: the world of the circus awaits! The San Francisco Public Library presents "Under the Big Top: Circus Books Selected from the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor." The exhibition will be on view during regular Library hours Monday, April 1 through May 31, 2002, in the Skylight Gallery on the sixth floor of the San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, Civic Center. Also included in the exhibition is a menagerie of circus posters drawn from the Art & Music Collection.

On Sunday, April 21 at 2:00pm in the Main Library’s Koret Auditorium, the San Francisco Circus Center presents Under the Big Top, an afternoon of acrobatics, clowning, contortion, and juggling for children of all ages. Circus-themed large screen videos will be shown throughout the month of May, Thursdays at 12 Noon in the Koret Auditorium.

Nat Schmulowitz -- attorney, civic leader, and bibliophile -- presented the San Francisco Public Library with 93 volumes of humor in 1947. He encouraged the development of the collection until his death in 1966. Since then, the Schmulowitz Collection (SCOWAH) has grown to over 20,000 volumes in 35 languages, and is considered to be the largest collection of its kind in the United States. Every April Fool's Day, in honor of this extraordinary man and his dedication to the public library, the Book Arts & Special Collections Center organizes a themed selection of books and periodicals drawn from the collection.

All programs and exhibits at the Library are free of charge and open to the public.

For more information, please call (415) 557-4277.